by David Wind
“Not long.” He led me into the living room. Unlike Lia Thornton’s spacious and minimally decorated apartment, Albright’s was an advertisement for an antique store. The living room smelled of money, from the ornate wooden arms of the embroidered couch and side chairs to the gold trimmed tables delimiting the sitting area.
The floor, carpeted in a thick gold wool almost succeeded in tying together the multi-hued embroidery of the furniture—almost. Gilt framed pictures hung on the walls, each accented by their own spotlight. It was more of a showroom than a living room and one in which I couldn’t imagine anyone being comfortable.
He motioned me to sit on the couch while he took the large chair next to it. Rubbing at his mustache with his thumb and forefinger, he said, “What can I do for you?”
“I have a few questions that need clarification.”
Then he rubbed at the side of his humped nose with a forefinger. “Does this have anything to do with last night?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. “At dinner last night?”
He shook his head. “No, what happened at Lia’s, when you were shot at.”
“News travels fast.”
“Lia told me today. Terrible.”
“It could have been. No, it’s more in line with what we were discussing at the restaurant.”
His forehead creased into a half dozen lines. “I’m afraid you lost me.”
“We had talked about investing in the show, you and your clients.”
His neck arched like a startled snake. “I told you my business with my clients is not open for discussion. As a private detective I’m sure you understand the concept of privileged information.”
“Yes, but, as the private detective investigating Scotty’s murder, I can’t accept it.”
His features turned to stone. “You have no choice.”
He was wrong; he just didn’t know it yet. “One way or another, I’ll ferret out everything about the dealings involving the play. It’ll be easier if you’ll tell me now.”
“As I said to you last night, my dealings with my clients are confidential and shall remain so.” This time there was ice in his words.
We stared at each other for several seconds. The more he spoke, the more my dislike grew. No matter what I’d said to Lia, this was personal to me, very personal. “Mr. Albright, understand I’ve already learned a great deal. I know about your problems with the SEC and I know your financial situation—or should I say your financial troubles. Who loaned you the money to invest in the show?”
“I don’t see any relevance to that,” he snapped.
“Right now you’re a pivotal person in the play’s production. You are responsible, through your clients, for a large share of the financing. So there is significance to my question.”
Albright glanced impatiently at his white-gold Rolex. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, and I hope it will be the last. When I learned Scotty was producing a new play, and read the first draft of the play, I believed it was something worth following up so I decided to invest, and told several of my clients. That’s the whole of it.”
The words were right, but my gut said they weren’t. “Who did you borrow the money from?”
He shook his head. “Enough of this!”
“Mr. Albright, you hired me to find out who killed Scotty. If you can’t be straight with me, then you become a suspect.”
“How dare you?” he shouted, half rising out of his seat.
“Oh, I dare. And I’m still waiting for an answer. And believe me, Mr. Albright, when I say I will find out, I will.”
There was anger in his eyes, and something else—fear perhaps.
When he spoke next, his voice was calmer and very business-like. “Mr. Storm. However hard it may be to accept, I will not tell you who loaned me the money, please be assured the loan was personal.”
I stayed silent, waiting. I didn’t wait very long. He took a deep breath, and then spread his hands out, palms up. “I have fallen on hard times. Yes, the SEC investigated my firm and myself, and found no irregularities. They thought I was involved in insider trading, but I wasn’t. I guided my clients using common sense instead of wheeling and dealing.
A year ago, I took a risk for myself, and made a foolish mistake which cost me a great deal. An up and coming company sought out my help. I looked them over and decided there was a good chance this company would skyrocket. I invested heavily and, three months into working with them, they were hit with a patent fraud suit. The company went down like a torpedoed ship and I lost everything I’d invested. But, not one penny of my clients’ money was involved.”
I leaned forward, my hands clasped, my arms leaning on my thighs. “And so you had to borrow money to make money. Scotty’s show looked like a good way to do it, so you invested.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Who did you borrow the money from?”
“Why is this so important?”
“Because whoever you borrowed the money from has a stake in the play’s success. He’ll want to be repaid. Therefore he is a suspect.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m sorry, but no, I can’t tell you.”
Frustration pushed at me, but I held back. “It would be better to tell me.”
His eyes clouded. “Mr. Storm, I can honestly say the person who loaned me the money had nothing to do with Scotty’s death. You’ll have to take my word on it.”
That was not something I was prepared to do. I stood. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Albright.”
“Thomas.” A high-pitched woman’s voice echoed from the hall an instant before she appeared in the living room. She was in her fifties, small and thin, with stylish short dyed auburn hair and a taunt upward pull of facial skin that screamed man-made. She stopped after her second step, her eyes going from her husband to me. “I didn’t realize you had company.”
“Mr. Storm was just leaving. Mr. Storm, my wife, Monica. Mr. Storm is the detective investigating Scotty Granger’s murder,” he explained as he stepped next to me.
I crossed the distance between us and extended my hand. “Mrs. Albright, a pleasure.”
“It’s very nice to meet you. I’m sorry about Mr. Granger,” she added before turning to Albright. “Thomas, it’s getting late.”
“We’re done, dear,” he said. The ‘dear’ sounded wrong coming from his mouth. “Is there anything else?” he asked.
“Not for now. Thank you for your time. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Albright. Lovely place you have here.”
She beamed a smile. “Thank you.”
Albright escorted me to the door and, when it was open, I said, “Think on it.”
He nodded, but his eyes told me he wouldn’t.
<><><>
My next stop was Scotty’s apartment. I’d stalled for as long as I could, but there were things to do there. I’d spent the ride across town thinking about Albright. And, as I let myself into the apartment, I couldn’t shake the feeling it was more than just someone’s privacy he was protecting. The half-hidden fear in his eyes had told me so. But in time, whatever he was afraid of, I would discover.
Scotty’s apartment was quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning, which the girls had left running. The smells that had permeated the apartment earlier had been washed clean. I went toward Scotty’s office but stopped in the living room to look at the floor Gina had scrubbed.
She had done a thorough job. Almost all of the blood was gone. She hadn’t been able to get the dark stains out from between the slats of the floor, but the cleaning crew would.
I stared at the bullet holes, wondering again, how someone could stand over him and do that. The holes told their own story. The first one was closest to me. The second was a foot away. The last two were within inches of each other. He had stopped moving before the last two shots had been fired. A chill raced upwards along my spine as I walked out.
In his office, I turned on the lights an
d looked around. Chris had finished packing the shelves and drawers. There were two small boxes and two medium ones on the floor in front of his desk. One of the smaller boxes was marked Bolt, the other Storm. The shelves were empty as was the desk.
I went over to the four-drawer file cabinet and opened the top drawer. Scotty’s records were there. Expenses, taxes, his monthly bills and his bank accounts and brokerage account. I closed the drawer, opened the second one, and stared at its contents.
The folders were all labeled. The first one was Bethany Forster. I took it out, opened it and found a photo of a ten-year-old girl with red hair, hazel brown eyes and a heart-melting smile.
Several sheets of typed paper were stapled behind the photo. Turning the folder lengthwise, I read the typed record sheet listing her name, her age at the time of the record, and her date of birth. Ten-year-old Bethany Forster had disappeared from Greenfield, Pennsylvania three and a half years ago. She and her family had been on their summer vacation, a camping trip. It was their last night, and Bethany had taken the dog for a walk. They found the dog but not the girl. The rest of the papers were copies of missing person reports and the follow-ups.
I replaced the folder. From this point on, the little red headed girl would reside in my memory. I skimmed over the names until I came to one that stopped me short.
As if it was someone else’s hand, I reached for the folder, pulled it out and stared at the label. Elizabeth Granger. The folder was like ice in my hands. Opening it, I found Scotty’s sister staring up at me with eight-year-old bright blue eyes. She was a pretty child. Bouncy blonde hair framed wide eyes. The double curve of her lips smiled out of the photograph. ‘Lizbeth….
There were no papers, just the photograph. I closed the file and started to put it back when a pinprick caught my fingertip. Turning the folder over, I spotted the tip of the staple sticking up from the backing of the folder. I opened it again and found a staple on the inside with a small notch of paper stuck under it.
What had been there and why wasn’t it still there?
I returned Elizabeth’s folder to the drawer, closed it and opened the next drawer. It was filled with manila folders and I almost closed it before I noticed the first name on the alphabetically filed folders. Thomas Albright.
The folders were the investors—not just of the current show but also of all the shows. I wondered why he had them even as I pulled Albright’s folder and opened it. Then I understood. They were fact sheets, listing the investor, a short bio and the investment. Behind those papers were accounting sheets he used to keep track of profits and losses.
Returning the folder to the drawer, I looked at a few more. They were all identical. Then I looked at a couple of the investors from previous shows. Those had complete records, including the profits paid to each one. Scotty was nothing short of meticulous. I returned the folder, closed the drawer, and moved on.
Scotty had used the bottom drawer as a depository for photographs: His family, his friends and photos of himself. There were several scrapbooks: one was of Scotty when he was eight or nine. He was small but cute. I flipped a few pages and found a picture of Scotty and his parents. He looked three or four, and wore jeans, no shirt and a cowboy hat. His mother was holding a baby.
I closed the book, started to return it to the drawer but changed my mind. This one was coming home with me. I went to the light switch and started to shut the light, but something was nagging at me.
Backtracking to the file cabinet, I opened the second drawer and combed through the files again. When I finished, I’d found three more files with missing paperwork. I didn’t know whether the missing papers were important, but it might be something.
At the front door, I wondered if I would ever be able to come back to this apartment without seeing Scotty on the living room floor. I doubted it. But I did know that when I found out who had killed him, I would be able to clean it out and sell the apartment.
Opening the front door triggered another memory. It was the day after his murder when I’d come to look around. The police tape had been cut. I had searched the apartment but had found nothing missing.
I thought about the files with the missing paperwork. Had whoever broken the seal taken the papers from these files? It made sense, but it opened a whole new line of thought that filtered into the same endless one word question, why?
Chapter 27
Saturday night is prime time in mid-town Manhattan, and cabs were as hard to find as they were in rush hour. Walking home would be the way, so I started across Forty-seventh toward Broadway, the scrapbook and files tucked under my left arm.
It took all of a half block before an itch grew at the nape of my neck. It was just the barest of tingles, but enough to get my attention. Once again, I had been too wrapped up in my head to pay attention.
Crossing the street at mid-block, I slowed my pace and used the back windows and side view mirrors of parked cars to watch behind me until I made the tail. He was dressed in jeans and a long sports shirt.
I knew the neighborhood well. Before the corner, there was a small alley servicing the stores on Ninth Avenue. I slowed, and when I reached the alley, turned in. There was a dumpster three feet to my left. I moved to it, put down the scrapbook and lifted my left foot, pretending to tie my shoelace. Adrenaline surged, heightening my senses. My heart kicked up and my muscles tensed. The drone of a television echoed a couple of floors above me; and, the sounds of the passing traffic intensified.
He must have been wearing sneakers because I didn’t hear him until he was a couple of feet away and something crunched under his foot. I whirled at the sound. His face was shadowed and I couldn’t make out anything but his surprise widened eyes as I went at him with a stiff fingered straight arm.
He was good, countered my lunge with his forearm, and spun away. Recovering, I set myself for the oncoming attack. His teeth were bared, his lips twisted in a snarl. A dark shadow of hair fell to his shoulders. He moved fast, bending his head and charging me with both fists raised.
I let him come and, as I pulled my left arm up, the night exploded. I staggered, going down to one knee while doing my best to shake off the blow to my head. Moving fast and without thinking, I rolled to the ground, grabbing the Sig as I did.
The guy who had been behind me—a second guy I hadn’t spotted—was wielding a wooden baton –an Escrima stick—and couldn’t stop his forward motion. The stick whooshed through the empty space where I’d been. Ignoring the still searing pain in my head, I rolled once more and got to my knees, the Sig held out in a firing stance.
They stopped short and stared at me. The man to my left reached under his shirt just as two women walked by the alley. One screamed. The men turned and ran, knocking the screaming woman down.
I staggered to my feet, holstered the Sig and went over to the women. The first woman was helping the screamer up. “Are you okay?”
The women looked at me; fear was spread across their faces. “You….”
“Those men attacked me,” I said, holding up my left hand to forestall them and reaching into my hip pocket. Both women jerked back. I pulled the wallet and opened it so they could see the badge. “I’m a detective. Are you all right?” I asked the woman who’d been knocked down.
“I… I think so. Were they trying to rob you?”
“It appears that way.”
“I hope you catch them,” the woman who’d fallen said.
“I will. Thank you, you helped.”
Both women smiled hesitantly. I went to the dumpster to retrieve the scrapbook. It was too bad the women had come just then. I’d wanted to talk to at least one of my attackers. He would have talked… eventually. While I hadn’t had light enough to make them both out, I had been close enough to the first one to recognize him again. But something felt wrong. Maybe it was what it appeared to be at first glance, a mugging.
I touched the back of my head with my fingertips and explored the growing bump. There was no blood, which meant my har
d head had come through without being opened up.
I headed east, again looking for a cab. I no longer felt like walking—the headache from the hit on my head, thundered in on an eight-horse stagecoach. Of course, there were still no taxis.
At Eighth Avenue, I stood on the corner, determined to find a cab. Five minutes later, I was just as determined and just as cab-less.
“Well, as I live and breathe, ain’t it the man with a taste for young white girls.”
Turning to face the streetwise hooker who had pointed me toward ‘Sugar’—Margaret Ann—that first night, I said, “Hello Lilah.”
“It’s a little early for me to go to work, but I don’t mind taking a whirl before dinner.”
In spite of the headache, I laughed. “Not tonight, not me.”
“I didn’t think so, but why not take the shot,” she said with a good-natured smile. The smile faded. “You’re the one who was looking for Sugar, weren’t you?”
“That’s me.”
“You won’t find her no more. She’s dead.”
“Word travels fast around here…. They pulled her out of the river.”
“Shame, such a young thing….”
“Shame,” I echoed. “You said you were going to dinner?”
She smiled again. “I needs to fuel up for a night’s work. Never know how many customers there gonna be. Sometimes you cain’t get enough time between them to eat.”
“How ‘bout I buy a half hour of your time and feed you as well?”
She studied me for a minute. “You don’t smell like a cop. You ganna to lecture me?”
“You don’t look like you need a lecture. You look like you’re handling things okay.”
“Let’s get that food then.”
“How does a cop smell?”
She grinned. “Like a cop.”
<><><>
An hour later, I turned onto my block. I had kept my promise and had fed Lilah well. She’d helped me out too, by giving me three aspirins to contain the headache. Instead of the half hour, it had taken almost an hour. And since she wasn’t paying, she’d ordered well: A strip steak, salad and French fries, washed down with two cokes and followed by a slice of pecan pie and a cup of coffee. I stuck with coffee and questions.